


raise a glass to freedom

by inconocible



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon Gay Relationship, Canonical Character Death, Dreams and Nightmares, F/M, First Kiss, Gay Sex, Historical References, M/M, a lot of it :(, as historically accurate as possible, as much as possible
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-26
Updated: 2015-11-26
Packaged: 2018-05-03 13:23:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5292623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inconocible/pseuds/inconocible
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>five times Alexander wakes up screaming.</p>
            </blockquote>





	raise a glass to freedom

Alexander wakes up screaming.

Alexander wakes up screaming.

Alexander wakes up screaming.

Alexander wakes up screaming.

Alexander wakes up screaming.

\--

**i. Alexander wakes up screaming.**

Night after night.

The house slaves begin to talk: Improper for a boy of 13, nearly a man. He shouldn’t be behaving like that. He ought to get better control of himself. Master Thomas frowns upon such stuff.

Oh, leave him alone, Henri. The poor chile’s done lost his mother and his uncle so quick and done got separated from his brother, too. The poor chile’s always so sickly in body, it would be easy to imagine him to be sickly in mind. Poor Mister Alex, never got no chance to be a boy. Too serious.

Oh, Eva, poor Mister Alex nothing. If he was really that serious, he wouldn’t go spouting his mouth off at every conversation.

And so on.

Master Edward done taken to sleeping in Mister Alex’s room some nights, Henri offers up one morning. Sometimes even in the same bed.

They just boys, Eva answers, punching down a white loaf of bread dough. Now, stoke that fire or get gone. 

Just boys nothing, Henri scoffs. They’s almost grown men. It ain’t right at their age.

Alexander wakes up screaming.

“Alex,” his bedmate groans sleepily. Alex thrashes under the covers; Edward is nearly pushed out of the bed. “ _Alex_ ,” he says again.

“ _Maman_!”

Edward turns over, hooking a leg over Alex’s hips, pinning his arms roughly. “Alex!”

Alexander gasps as he wakes. He continues thrashing, but now it is to fight a living enemy, not one in a dream. “Let go of me,” he whimpers. But the other boy, two years older and considerably bigger, holds him tight. The struggle slows; Alex stills. The two boys breathe harshly, eyes locked. Alexander considers the concern in Edward’s eyes, thinks about his mother’s eyes, wonders if Edward truly loves him, if it is love that he sees in his friend’s face, or if Edward has some ulterior motive. For just a moment, Alex, confused, ponders the feeling of Edward’s muscular body laid against his, ponders reaching up and kissing Edward, ponders what it would feel like, his lips and hands stronger and rougher than a girl’s. Alex has been pondering these things for three months, has spent the past three months waking confused, his limbs and breath tangled up with Edward’s; he ponders them still. For just a moment, Alex has no words.

Only just a moment.

“Perhaps I ought to take leave altogether of this sleeping business,” he muses, trying on a false bravado though his breaths still come irregularly. “Perhaps I ought to invent a palliative that renders sleep unnecessary.”

Edward rolls his eyes as he releases Alex and rolls back to lying onto his side, collecting Alex into his arms. Alex presses his sweaty, tear-stained face into Edward’s chest, but continues talking.

“You see, my dear Ed, if the need to sleep were eliminated, so too would the terrors of the night be eliminated.” His words are bold and animated, but his body trembles. “The trick is finding an appropriate supplement or substitute such that the body would not suffer for its lack of sleep.”

“Mm,” Edward answers, not especially listening, stroking Alex’s unruly curls, rocking back and forth ever so slightly. “Tell me about it.”

“Well,” Alex begins, and by the time he finishes explaining, Edward is asleep again, his lips against Alex’s forehead.

Three mornings later, over a late breakfast, alone but for Henri occasionally delivering another cup of tea or plate of cakes, Edward, with a sly grin, presents to Alex a package wrapped in rough cloth when Henri has left the room.

“What’s this?” Alex asks, glancing coyly at Edward under his long lashes as he unwraps the cloth. Under the humble and hasty wrapping is a beautiful leather journal cover, filled with creamy, expensive-looking paper, and with room still in the cover to bind in more pages in the future. Alex doesn’t even want to think about how much it might have cost.

“My dear Ed!” Alex exclaims. “What’s the meaning of this generous gift? Have I forgotten some holiday?”

Edward’s smile becomes genuine and wide. “No, _mon chéri_. Simply that you may not always have such a willing listener as myself when you wake in the night. I thought perhaps you might have a book in which to write your ideas down, lest they fly from your sleepy mind come morning’s light.”

Impulsively, Alex leaps to his feet, grabbing at Edward’s hand and bringing his knuckles to his lips for a light kiss. Edward easily tugs Alex forward, not quite embracing him, but wrapping his free hand possessively around the back of Alex’s neck.

“My dearest Alexander,” Edward whispers, their noses practically touching, “I -- I want things I ought not.”

Before Alex can answer, Edward swiftly pulls him in, kissing him roughly on the mouth. All Alex can do is surrender, is open his mouth to Edward’s insistent tongue. Before he knows it, Edward is pulling away, or, rather, pushing Alex away, swiping the back of one hand across his mouth. “I had to know,” Edward huffs, breathing unevenly, scrubbing that hand through his hair. “And now we stop this.”

He turns on his heel and practically runs from the dining room.

Alexander wakes up screaming.

His bed is cold.

He pulls his knees to his chest, laying his cheek on the quilt, shaking and crying. He nearly calls for Edward, nearly crosses the hall to his room. Instead, haunted by the memory of Edward’s kiss, he bites down on his lip until it bleeds, until his shaking stills. “Fend for yourself, _mon chéri_ ,” he whispers to himself. He sighs deeply, gets out of bed, taking the quilt with him, wrapped around his thin shoulders. He sits at the small table across the room, opens the expensive journal, uncorks a bottle of ink, sharpens a quill, and begins what will be a lifelong habit.

\--

**ii. Alexander wakes up screaming.**

His mouth feels of leather, tastes of sour ale. He lurches up to sitting, ink smudged on one of his high cheekbones, his arms half-asleep from resting under his head, his back sore from sleeping slumped over onto his makeshift writing desk -- two crates stacked atop one another. His candle is burned down to nearly a nub, throwing a weak, yellow light about the tent. His quill has fallen to the floor. His ass is sore from being seated on the floor of the tent all evening. He wishes that he had stayed in the General’s headquarters to finish his writing, that if he were to submit this evening to the inevitable fate of sleeping at his desk, that he had at least gotten to sleep in a proper chair at a proper desk. Alas. He wipes his hands under his eyes, sniffling, willing himself to be controlled.

“Hamilton?”

He startles, having nearly forgotten that Laurens slept in the cot on one side of the small desk, Hamilton’s own cot lying empty on the other side. Hamilton feels heat rise in his cheeks, ducks his head, pulling his knees to his chest, looking at the ground, recalling his dream, his tears, his cries that finally woke him from the dream. “I’m sorry to wake you, dear Laurens.”

“Nonsense,” Laurens counters, sitting up in his cot. “I am glad you woke. You cannot be comfortable slumped over that poor excuse for a desk, Hamilton.”

It’s hot out; Hamilton feels a bead of sweat rolling down his back, though the sun is not yet up. Hot enough to contribute to deaths during the battle a fortnight ago; hot enough to make the entire encampment stink more than it ought. Hot enough that Hamilton’s blazing blush could just be an abundance of sun. But Hamilton, Caribbean-born, is not nearly as susceptible to the sun as some of his compatriots seem to be. The heat in his tanned, lean face is not the sun’s touch.

It is this: That for the past eight months, Hamilton has wished for Laurens, like he has never wished before. That he has grown close in friendship like never before, that he has longed for more like never before, that he has written pages upon pages late at night. That he finally understands the frustration he saw in Edward Steven’s countenance, six long years prior. That he does not want to throw away his shot, though he lingers on the question of what his shot even _is_ : The revolution, or Laurens?

Lost in his thoughts, he startles yet again when Laurens speaks. “Hamilton?”

Hamilton finally looks at his friend, his fellow aide-de-camp. He cannot tear his eyes from the place on Laurens’s shoulder where he knows a bullet scar lies; from the still-bruised ribs Laurens landed hard on a fortnight ago. He imagines still the blood of Laurens’s horse on his coat in Monmouth, imagines still the blood that Laurens himself shed in Germantown. Hamilton’s face burns; he imagines still blood on his dear, fair Laurens’s skin, even when he closes his eyes.

“Hamilton?”

When he opens his eyes, Laurens has left his cot, is kneeling in front of him, one hand on his shoulder. “Are you well, dear Hamilton?”

Hamilton bites his lip. “I dreamed of you,” he says quietly.

“I --“ Laurens hesitates. “Yes, I -- you called out for me.”

“Oh.” Were it possible for a human body to spontaneously combust, Hamilton thinks he might do so. He makes a mental note to write the topic down for further exploration. Later.

“Are you well?” Laurens asks again. Hamilton glances up, meeting Laurens’s expressive brown eyes. They reflect back concern, affection, perhaps even love, though Hamilton hesitates to think the word.

“I dreamed of you,” he says. “Of you in battle. Falling in battle.”

“Oh,” Laurens answers. His grip on Hamilton’s shoulder tightens. “Hamilton, I -- do not worry for me, dear friend. I am well and whole, and here with you.”

“Laurens,” Hamilton says, his voice the smallest whisper, his mouth dry. “I have lost many dear souls whom I have loved. It frightens me to the bone to consider losing you.” A shiver runs involuntarily down his spine at the honest confession, wracking his entire body. Laurens lets go of his shoulder, leans forward on his knees, places his hand on Hamilton’s back, not quite an embrace, but a comforting, encouraging touch.

“Dear Laurens,” Hamilton whispers, barely audible. “I want what I ought not.” He glances up at Laurens, meeting his gaze. Hamilton shivers again. “Do you?”

“Alexander,” Laurens whispers in return. He smiles. “I did not think…”

“John,” Hamilton gasps in sudden understanding, moving closer, closing the distance. “I understand that this is, is, unusual, but I --“

Laurens cuts him off with a questioning look. “Shh, Alexander.” His hand moves up Hamilton’s back, cups his skull, gently pulling him closer. “I know.” And he presses his lips against Hamilton’s in the most tentative of kisses. Hamilton moans in a small voice, opening his mouth to Laurens’s, moving even closer, resting one palm against Laurens’s stubbled cheek.

Hamilton ends up in his lap; when they finally break the kiss, both gasping for air, he leans his forehead against Laurens’s, feeling the slick sheen of sweat that collects on both their faces, clinging to Laurens’s back as a lifeline. “My God,” Hamilton breathes. “John, I --“

“I know,” Laurens whispers. “This is -- but I do not care. You are dear to my heart, Alexander.”

“And you to mine,” Hamilton says, kissing him again.

\--

**iii. Alexander wakes up screaming.**

“Oh, Alex,” a smooth, sleepy, weary voice answers. “All is well.” A strong, thin body curls around his, stilling his thrashing arms; a strong, rough hand presses warmth into his hunger-lean chest, cool despite the fact that no skin is exposed, that they both sleep in all the clothing they own. “Alexander,” the voice whispers. “Wake, dear heart. All is well.”

Alex gasps and shivers and presses closer to John’s warmth, turning in his hold, ducking his head under John’s chin.

“My dear John,” Alex whispers, twining one of his legs between his partner’s, gripping the front of John’s shirt, shaking. After a long pause, Alex offers, “I dream of hurricanes and destruction.”

Outside, the wind howls. A snowstorm rages around them; the roof of their tent sags dangerously with piles of snow. The small pan of hot coals that Martha insisted all officers take from headquarters each night has gone cold. All they have against the brutal winter night is two thin blankets spread upon them, two ratty coats in need of mending spread upon those, two bedrolls beneath them, two bodies between. It is not enough. Alex shivers violently.

“Be still,” John murmurs, trying for something between a joke and a comforting word. “We shall both surely catch our deaths of cold if you keep disturbing the blankets at this rate.”

“Would you rather catch death of warm rain water or of frozen ice water?” Alex grumbles, his breath puffing into white clouds in front of his face.

“Neither,” John says, readjusting the blankets, tucking them in around Alex’s narrow shoulders.

“Are you not frightened?” Alex asks, pulling away just enough to shoot an incredulous glare at his partner. “Would you not rather die in battle than in an ice storm?”

John sighs. “ _Mon ami_ , we speak of death too often. Let us find something sunnier.”

“Death by warm rain water it is,” Alex says bitterly. “As such conditions are sunny until the clouds come.”

“Alex,” John sighs again, and it’s not quite a rebuke but not quite not a rebuke. John runs a heavy hand down Alex’s side, feeling his partner’s ribs quite clearly, before resting his hand on Alex’s too-prominent hipbone. “Be still.”

“No,” Alex says, squirming under John’s touch, unable to be relaxed. “We joined this war to fight, not to freeze to death! My God, I cannot even perform such tasks that are normally assigned me! I cannot carry messages in these conditions; I cannot write comfortably while under fear of becoming an icicle! Do not tell me this is not just as bad as enduring such a horror of hurricane that you have never seen, that I cannot adequately describe! Our business of battle is held up; our men lose fingers and toes and lives! How can you make light --“

John cuts him off with a kiss, cupping his jaw in one hand, feeling his body respond, feeling Alexander’s body respond. Alex releases his hold on John’s shirt and winds his arm under and around John’s underfed torso, stroking John’s cool skin, pressing flush against him.

“John,” Alex gasps, breaking the kiss. “You have my apologies.”

John laughs. “Accepted, dear Hamilton.” He kisses him again, rocking his hips against Alex’s.

Alex says, “You know that I have found these cold winters here to drive me into a state of depressive despair.”

John laughs again. “Dear boy, you describe my heart as it feels at all times. A state of depressive despair.”

“Must we always despair?” Alex gasps, rocking into John as he nips at Alex’s bottom lip. “Will there ever be happiness?”

“Perhaps,” John answers coyly, snaking one hand down to the strings of Alex’s breeches, kissing him again. “Perhaps we could find happiness briefly in death... _en un petite mort, mon ami, non_?”

Though he grins wolfishly and moves more insistently against John’s body, Alex groans, “I wish not to disrobe nor disturb these blankets.”

“There is no need for either of those things, dear Alex.” John deftly unties Alex’s breeches, then his own, tugging them down just enough for skin to touch skin, gasping at the feeling.

Alex’s hand joins John’s beneath the blankets, stroking one another, rocking against one another for long, silent minutes. No matter how many times they have already done this, how many times they will do this, each time, Alex is utterly amazed by it, by the comfort and affection in it, this so-called sin. This, he thinks, this cannot possibly be sin. This is salvation.

Soon, their breaths come quicker, harsher, rougher, white clouds of freezing air rising about their faces. “John,” Alex whimpers urgently, trembling in John’s arms, his forehead pressed against John’s. “I --“

“Shh, I know,” John breathes, gazing deeply into Alex’s brown-black eyes, his breath and muscles both hitching and stuttering in time with Alex’s hand. “Oh, Alexander --“

Alex cries out in release; John captures his mouth in a rough, open-mouthed kiss, swallowing the sound, groaning into Alex’s mouth as he, too, finds release. They linger for a moment, not bothering to shift positions to clean themselves, but rather basking in the warmth of the result of their coupling before reluctantly tucking themselves back into their breeches and settling into one another’s arms.

Finally, Alex speaks, his hand over John’s heart. “You are so dear to me,” he whispers.

“And you to me,” John replies sleepily, running a soothing palm over Alex’s curly hair.

“I love you deeply,” Alex ventures.

“Be still and rest, dear heart.”

“John.”

“Shh,” John replies, holding Alex closer. “That is no conversation for neither ice storm nor hurricane, dear boy.”

Alex yawns and relaxes into his partner’s body. “Even still, it is true, these past six months. I have come to love you more deeply than any other. And I shall say it until you believe me.”

\--

**iv. Alexander wakes up screaming.**

“Alexander!” He has been scaring her, avoiding their bed for a fortnight, and now, on this, this first night that he has finally elected to sleep with her rather than on the cot in his office, he scares her even more. He wakes up screaming.

She does not know at first what he screams, but then she realizes: “John. John. John, no!”

“Alexander,” Eliza calls again, rising from their bed, pulling a shawl around her nightgown, placing a warm hand on her husband’s sweaty forehead. “Alexander, my love, you dream.”

Alex gasps and shoots up from bed, swinging his feet to the floor, doubled over at the waist, resting his arms on his knees and his head in his hands. Eliza wonders at the way his breaths come, nearly like a child’s sobs.

“Alexander?” She rounds the bed and kneels before him on the rag rug on his side of the bed, laying her hands tentatively over his. “My love, you simply dream.”

Alex shakes his head, pushing her away gently. “It is not simple,” he croaks, and when he looks up Eliza is shocked to see his tears. She has never seen any man cry before, certainly not her husband.

“Of what do you dream, my love?” she asks, and he shakes his head. “What can I do, Alexander?” Her hands flutter uncertainly near him, until she reminds herself, I know who I married, and places her hands on his knees. “Let me carry some of your burden, my love.” He breaks, then, sliding off of the bed, sinking to his knees in front of her, falling forward to bury his face in her bosom, weeping.

“Oh, Alexander.” Eliza holds him as she suspects he has not been held in some time -- for he has not let her, has not come near her, has claimed business -- and, at any rate, she’s never in her life seen him like this. She thinks while absentmindedly stroking his sleep-wild curls, thinks about what -- or who -- her husband was calling out to in his nightmare, thinks about the letter that came a fortnight ago, thinks about some seemingly-offhanded comments he has made in the past, and thinks, _oh._

“Alexander, you work so hard that you do not allow yourself the time and space to properly mourn Mister Laurens’s passing,” she murmurs. “You must allow yourself this, lest you fall ill.”

“I cannot!” Alex cries, and his ferocity startles her. “I cannot, I cannot. Oh God, if only I could think he were still in South Carolina, away from me in body but not in spirit, then would I rest easily as I have been these past few years. I cannot imagine his spirit gone from this world, Betsy.”

“But you must know that to be false, and you must grieve.” Eliza’s knees start to ache, and she shifts to a seated position, and Alex goes with her, practically doubled over in anguish, his tears still falling. When he goes a long moment without an answer, Eliza bites her lip, concerned by her husband’s lack of words. “Tell me about him, my love. Tell me about what makes him so dear, for I mourn the fact that we shall never meet.”

Alex draws in a long breath and tries for composure but continues to sob. “He would have loved you, I think,” he starts. “As he loved me. As I loved him. God --“ and a fresh wave of anguish washes over him.

“Shh, Alexander, you will fall ill.”

“I am ill,” he moans.

Calmed somewhat by Eliza’s tender touch, Alex pulls away, pulls his knees to his chest, tries again to gather himself. “I cannot, Eliza, adequately tell you about John Laurens.” His voice breaks, but he plows ahead with his thought. “The relationship between two soldiers, bonded in wartime, spending nearly every waking moment together, working on missions and documents not only of vital personal importance but of vital importance to our new nation -- I have not the words for the bond between us. Only that I loved him more than any other person before you; only that he and I were to one another then what you and I are to one another now.” He sighs. “The best of officers, the best of men.”

Alex sniffles, scrubbing a hand over his face. “I am sorry to burden you so, my dear. It is -- a gentleman ought not act so.” He sighs again and unfolds himself from the floor, offering a hand to Eliza, helping her to her feet. “And now that I am awake at any rate, I have correspondences to attend to.”

Alex kisses Eliza gently on both cheeks even as she grabs at his wrist, even as she begins to protest, “Alexander, why can’t you --“

“I will not be able to sleep again tonight,” he says with an apologetic, half-amused, weary smile. “Perhaps I ought to take leave altogether of this sleeping business. Perhaps I ought to invent a palliative that renders sleep unnecessary.”

“-- Come back to bed,” Eliza finishes, but Alex shakes his head.

“I’ll be just next door in the study if you need me, love.”

“Alex --“ but he kisses her chastely on the lips and turns to leave, closing the door to the bedroom.

She lies awake for at least an hour, listening through the thin wall to the alternating sounds of the scratch of his quill and his quiet sobs, and she wonders why, and when, these walls came between them.

\--

**v. Alexander wakes up screaming.**

“Shh, Alex,” he hears, and he feels hands on him, but mostly he feels _pain_ , pain such that he has not known in too long. He thinks of illness, of suicide, of hurricanes, of snow storms, of John, of Phillip.

“Shh, all will soon be well,” he hears, and he knows not the voice. It is the voice of every soul he has ever loved, blended to one. “Eliza!” the voice calls. “He’s awake,” and suddenly he knows it to be that of Angelica, gripping his left hand in both of hers.

“My dearest,” he manages, looking at Angelica through clouded eyes.

“Hello, Alex, dear brother,” Angelica says, calm and even, though Alex gets the impression that there are others in the room, mourners, loud and uncertain. “Soon all will be well. They gave you enough medicine to keep you out of pain for some time.”

“This is a moral wound,” he whispers.

“Yes,” Angelica says, one serene tear sliding down her cheek. “But you have a little more time.” She turns to look over her shoulder, calling, “Eliza!”

She is there, suddenly, at Alex’s other side, stone-faced yet smiling. She strokes a gentle, calm palm over his sweaty forehead. “How are you, my love?”

He smiles. “Better now. I have been -- dreaming?” He reaches for her, and gathers her in, holding her loosely about her shoulders as she rests her chin upon his chest, looking him in the eye in a way they used to lie when they were young and full of dreams and things to tell one another, but have not in some time now.

“Of what do you dream?” she asks, smoothing both palms over his face, careful of putting too much pressure on his ribs.

“Those I have loved,” he whispers. He coughs, and his body shakes, and he groans in pain.

“All is well, and many love you,” Eliza says, stroking his grey curls with one hand. “Do not think about your mortal body, but of your spirit. Of what does your spirit dream, Alexander?”

He smiles again, though it is tempered by a look of pain. “Of the other side. Eliza, they are all waiting for me on the other side.” He coughs again, grimacing, but holding her gaze. “They are all there. John is there, he waits for me, and I will be with him again... with our son... my mother... the General.” One more cough, and blood comes from his mouth this time. Angelica reaches for it with a clean handkerchief, cleaning his face, giving him one last measure of dignity.

“Eliza, my love, take your time,” Alex whispers. “I’ll see you on the other side.”

He falls quiet.

**Author's Note:**

> I am no historian but tried to be as historically accurate as I could, at least to the extent of double-checking wikipedia. Ditto on my french. 
> 
> I'm not sorry about this 
> 
>  
> 
> [inconocible.tumblr.com](http://inconocible.tumblr.com/)


End file.
